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Friday, May 13, 2011

Peaches and Cream Cupcakes

I asked for suggestions for my next flavor, and ended up doing what I wanted anyway: peaches and cream. I used a recipe for a passionfruit curd cake from 101 cookbooks as a starter for the batter, then added the fresh fruit and preserves. The white chocolate was my attempt at "cream". They are super moist and really tasty, plus the peach preserves and white chocolate on top make them quite pretty.

Skin and cut up peaches into small chunks. Cover with 1/4 cup sugar, mix, let sit.

Combine your dry ingredients: Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a small/medium-sized bowl and set aside.

Combine your wet ingredients: In a separate medium-sized bowl beat the butter with the whisk attachment for about three solid minutes. You want the butter to be smooth and creamy before you add any of the rest of the ingredients. Now add the remaining sugar and beat some more - another three minutes minimum. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl once or twice during the process so you end up with a nice, even, creamy butter/ sugar blend.

Add the eggs one at a time: After you add each egg, mix until the egg is fully incorporated and the batter is smooth and creamy - scrape down the sides of the bowl now and then along the way. If you don't beat well enough at this stage you'll end up with little butter/sugar flecks throughout your batter in the end. After the eggs are well incorporated stir in the vanilla extract.

Combine wet and dry ingredients: Dump the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl and gently fold in the flour. You don't want to over mix the batter at this point, so continue to fold the flour in until the last of the flour just barely disappears.

Add peaches and almost all of the peach preserves. Chop white chocolate chunks into smaller pieces, then add to batter.

Fill each mini cupcake paper about half way, then top with a bit of peach preserves and a couple white chocolate pieces.

Bake for 30 minutes or until muffins bounce back a bit when you push the top with your finger.